He led us through the woods, up an incline that kept crumbling beneath me. With every breath and stumble, more mud caked my gown and shoes. My hair came loose from its pins and fell down my back. I began to sweat and soon grew too hot to bear my mantle. I tucked it under my arm, wishing I’d left it and my purse in the boat.

We reached the top of the rise and knelt on the edge of a rocky drop. Wallabout spread below us, its moonlit waters streaked by dark patches of mudflats. The ships were much closer now, the stench so vile my stomach seized.

“Miss.” A kerchief appeared before me.

“Thank you, Austin.” I pressed it to my nose. Lavender essence flowed into my nostrils, bringing blessed relief.

“The one closest to us is the Jersey,” said Beckett. “The men call it ‘Hell Afloat.’ It’s prison to privateersmen mostly, but also some soldiers and militiamen. Some foreign captives.”

Hell Afloat. A perfect name. What a tormented thing. The portholes and gunports were boarded over, the decks stripped of spars, rigging, rails. Only the main and foremast stood, both bare as flagpoles.

“In the mornings,” Beckett continued, “the men are brought above decks. You see them and your heart weeps. They’re filthy. Rags hanging on skeletons. Eyes with no hope. Some scarcely have the strength to stand. Every day there’s some don’t last the night. Ten. Twelve. Sometimes more—that’s on every ship, not just the Jersey. Their bodies are put on carts and rowed ashore and buried. But they dig shallow graves and tidal flats are bad soil for it, as you can perhaps see.”

I looked to where he pointed. “Do you mean those are—” Hot water pushed into my mouth as my eyes adjusted. “Those are limbs? They’re bodies?”

“They are. God keep them.”

It was a horror. Elbows, feet, heads. Half-buried. Rising from the earth like some terrible crop. Tears blurred my eyes. “There’s so many.”

Austin plucked the straw from his mouth, tossing it away angrily. “Thousands.”

I knew no American soldiers. No militiamen. But I had known an American privateersman once. I couldn’t even bear to imagine Asa Lane on one of those hellish ships. I swallowed, finding my voice. “Why did Mrs. Burgin want me to come here?”

Beckett and Austin exchanged a long look. Austin was the one to answer. “She told us if you made it out here, we were to give you the truth.”

“I’m here. I am ready for it.”

“Eliza’s been helping some of those men escape. Thanks to her, some two hundred men have avoided the fate that awaited them on that shoreline.”

Awe swept over me. “She freed two hundred prisoners?” She was a heroine!